famous last words
by clairebare
Summary: a new life for jane and lisbon; language
1. Chapter 1

1

"I do," I say.

"I do too," he says.

The bored clerk says a bunch of stuff.

Then for the first time since we left the TSA interrogation room, Patrick Jane kisses me. Well that, plus he bites my lower lip.

He pivots away. Puts some distance between us. Shakes the clerk's hand. Schmears the witnesses lavishly. This is New York.

I taste a little blood in my mouth.

I've never seen his eyes like this.

2

Earlier today, waiting with Abbott and Cho to board the plane to Austin, everything was good.

But he must have overheard me talking to Marcus.

Figured out I'd agreed to marry the guy when he heard me breaking off our engagement.

That's the only explanation I can come up with for what he did.

He dragged me away from the gate to Austin.

Hustled me onto a plane to New York.

Didn't say a word the whole flight.

We cabbed directly to the courthouse downtown where a justice waived the twenty-four hour waiting time.

Fifteen minutes later, I was Mrs. Patrick Jane.

Was I supposed to say "no?"


	2. Chapter 2

It looks like I might be in for a bumpy wedding night.

I guess that's to be expected when the groom is furious with the bride.

I mean, I'm pissed at me for agreeing to marry Pike.

Jane doesn't say a word after the ceremony.

We emerge from the courthouse and I follow him at a silent trot, eighty-five blocks north to 1040 Fifth Avenue. His ankle doesn't seem to be slowing him down.

The doorman does a double take when Jane sweeps into the lobby with me bringing up the rear.

"Mr. Jane. How good to see you. It's been a long time, sir."

"Alberto, how've you been? Uh…this is Mrs. Jane."

Hulking Alberto takes my hand like I'm a teacup. An enchanted teacup.

"Ahh…Mrs. Jane. Welcome."

Wow. I'm Mrs. Jane.

Wish Jane looked that happy I was here.

Alberto escorts us to the waiting elevator where the elevator man, Jeremy, does everything but carry Jane into the car in a snuggly to express his pleasure at seeing him again.

Penthouse.

The elevator opens directly onto a cavernous apartment.

Where are we?

Jane strides along the window wall drawing what I estimate to be a city block of heavy linen curtains. One by one, they billow, then puddle obediently one and one-half inches deep on the chevron patterned old oak floors.

The city sunlight bounces off the façade of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and lights up the intricate mouldings of the room.

It's almost empty, except for an extra long, extra spindly, gilt-legged sofa heaped with a United Nations of throw pillows. A battered parchment trunk serves as a coffee table.

Jane points at the sofa.

"I'll be back."

He didn't carry me across the threshold but at least he spoke.

Conversation over, the elevator returns and whisks him away.

I sit.

I pick up an Elle Décor from the stack on the trunk.

The May 2003 issue still in its clear plastic wrapper.

The subscription tag reads, "Mrs. Patrick Jane, 1040 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10028."


	3. Chapter 3

It's getting dark outside and no sign of my more malevolent half.

Where is he? Where am I? What have I done?

I've read through a few Elle Décors. Hollywood Regency was the coming thing for the cognoscenti in 2003. Nowadays, the hoi polloi like me make faux Dorothy Draper bureaus out of Ikea dressers.

Wonder where the Mrs. Jane of that era would come out on the "Hollywood Regency: trend or classic" question?

A buzzer. I look around. A little phone in a wall nook is ringing off its pre-war hook.

It's Alberto in the lobby.

Seems Bunny is on his way up to see me. Who?

Before I can answer, the elevator doors open and Bunny sweeps in.

"Teresa, oh, look at you. This is going to be easy. He let me think I had my work cut out for me, but you're going to be a dream."

Bunny is a tall beautiful red-haired man in a vintage cotton Pucci shirt, ankle-length kilt and Belgian loafers accompanied by a frazzled fat young woman, Teeny, and a silent goth-like man, Abraham.

They roll in racks of clothes and flip open tool cases of make-up and accessories.

I brace myself for what looks like an onslaught.

"Uh, Bunny, I don't know what he told you but—"

"He said you'd say that and that when you did, I should say, "Darling, can't we do things my way, just this once?"

I laugh at Bunny's imitation of Jane's plummy voice.

He called me "darling." Well he called me "darling" using Bunny as his proxy but it's better than the silent treatment I've been getting from the man himself.

I sigh. Why not let him have it his way? Just this once.

"Do your worst," I say.


	4. Chapter 4

"Darling, can't we do things my way? Just this once."

That was the groom's sole request.

I flash to years ago when he said goodbye to Sophie in the park. I see his face when I told him I wouldn't let him drive after all.

Two hours later, I have "a look."

Have never had one before. The FBI looks askance at agents with "looks."

I am gamine, Bunny says.

Gamine at Jane's request, I'm sure.

Bunny got a little scissor happy but I managed to stop him at deep straight bangs.

My remaining hair has been spoken to very sharply by Bunny and is now swept up on my crown. It shines like bittersweet chocolate satin tortured into the shape of a plump symmetrical bow.

I believe it's learned its lesson and is staying up there until Bunny says it can come down.

The rest of me is the kind of dressed-up that makes other women feel both overdressed and underdressed. Women like me piss me off.

I'm encased in a fitted jewel neck midnight blue wool boucle Chanel dress with cap sleeves hemmed to the knee with minute stitches by Abraham the goth.

Two lines of thick dark pink dashes in what Bunny calls sashiko embroidery travel straight down the front of the dress from the center of the neckline. At the solar plexus, the lines divide and trace the undersides of my breasts. Very complex and subtle and sexy.

Like my new husband. Like my new husband wants me to be.

Where is this so-called new husband?

The dress is midnight blue; not black. "Black would be disgusting on you," says Bunny. "Witchy." Teeny and Abraham agree.

Everything I have is black. I will never wear black again.

"How about green?" I ask Bunny. "Pffft," he says. "Matching eyes with clothes is so Mall of America."

"Pffft," says Teeny. "Pffft," says Abraham.

Is that what Jane's been thinking?

The midnight python Pierre Hardy high-heeled pumps on my feet match the dress exactly. Ever try to match dark blues?

No hose. 'Course not. That would be disgusting.

Teeny applies a streak of Nuxe oil down the front of each shin.

Abraham has me walk through a mist of something disturbing called Mure et Musc. As I pass him, he spritzes a little extra up my skirt.

Make up? Just Vaseline on my eyelashes and matte dark red lipstick.

"Anything more would be—"

"Disgusting?" I ask Bunny.

"Got it on the one," he crows delightedly.

Who's Bunny's fast little learner?

Teeny slips the tube of lipstick into a lilac silk Olympia Le Tan clutch made to look like a first edition of "Auntie Mame." "Can't get it anywhere. Grabbed it before it hit Net-A-Porter. Had to act fast before those bitches in Dubai glommed on to it," Teeny proudly whispers.

The elevator doors open.

I thought maybe Jane had come back but I'm escorted to the edge of Munchkinland by the grinning trio who hand me off to Jeremy, the elevator man.

Just before the doors close, Bunny's hand darts out and slips a ring on my finger.

With this ring, Jane me weds, I guess.

I look down at the narrowest, longest emerald-cut emerald I've ever seen set parallel and flush with the narrowest longest emerald-cut diamond I've ever seen. Like a modernist painting with a platinum frame around it attached to a platinum band.

Outrageous and bold and ineffably beautiful. Like the man himself.

"H. Stern!" They call in unison as the doors close.

"H. Stern, to you," I say. As if I knew what that meant.


	5. Chapter 5

1

I'm rolling down Fifth Avenue in a midnight Mercedes piloted by Yves, Mr. Jane's dashing driver.

Seems he always drives Mr. Jane when Mr. Jane is in New York.

When exactly is that? I wonder.

My math puts Jane in Austin or Venezuela over the last two and a half years.

Though he did escape in Brooklyn for a few hours. Wonder what damage he did then?

We cruise past Bergdorf Goodman's.

The windows are full of sexy, slinky black dresses. Cut high on the thigh and each paired with red shoes or boots. I love each one more than the next.

But alas, black or short is not in the cards for me tonight. At least as long as Bunny's around.

I make a note of which window contains the halterback with the feather skirt so I can stop by on our way to the airport tomorrow. Or maybe call from Austin. That dress must be mine. It'll look great with the red silk shoes that live in the back of my closet. And now that Jane and I are married, I bet I can get him to take me to Jack Allen's or Parkside.

Now that Jane and I are married…wait…maybe before I think about dresses or restaurants…

Now that Jane and I are married…maybe just maybe, I can get him to fuck my brains out. How about that?

Where is he? He cannot delegate this particular job.

2

We pull up in front of La Grenouille.

This isn't hip New York. This is powerful New York.

I enter the small bar area. Old School. Very grown up.

The legendary flower arrangements obscure the dining room completely.

All the men hanging at the bar look like pretenders to the Russian throne.

Formal suits. Classy profiles. Claus Von Bulows to the north and south of me.

The maitre d' seats me at the bar. Places a glass of Champagne in front of me.

You know what they serve at the bar at La Grenouille? Peanuts and potato chips.

Old School.

3

I feel a cool palm put pressure on the small of my back.

I'd know that sex toy anywhere. Jane's hand.

I turn my head and my mouth is captured by his.

He's dangerous in a dark suit, white shirt and solid blue tie.

"Darling," he says.

He spins me around and leads me into the dining room.

Directly to a table of about twenty Very Important Men and Women. All the men leap to their feet when they see me.

Old School.

At that moment, I understand where Jane was coming from in putting me together with Bunny.

I am greeted by these world leaders/captains of industry as a woman of substance rather than as…

Mutton dressed as lamb. In the dress I wore as the art dealer's girlfriend.

Or a touch mother of the bride, in the pink dress from the Blue Bird Inn.

God knows what they'd think if I was wearing the backless ostrich number from Bergdorf's.

Whatever Jane was going for in sending in Bunny, he achieved it.

The semiotics of my outfit are fascinating and opaque.

I look like the wife; not the doxy, not the ball and chain but the equal of a very powerful man.

Wish I knew who they think he is.


	6. Chapter 6

1

Remember me wondering who all these important people think Jane is?

The question is equally "who do I think Jane is?"

Jane introduces me to two dozen hot shots. They greet me with more than a hint of sycophancy. Their eyes look needy. Like I could do them terrible harm by not liking them.

As if by prior agreement, the captains of industry and world leaders take their leave in swift succession.

As they exit, the staff at La Grenouille spirits away chairs and sections of table until Jane and I are seated at the intimate corner banquette at the end of the dining room.

Like a musical chairs version of the food chain with Jane and me clearly at the top.

He takes my hands and smiles his best Jane smile.

As I look at his face, I certainly feel like I won.

2

"I know you're angry about Pike, but Jane, you married me, bit me and drew blood. And then you disappeared while fanatical fashionistas subjected me to a forced makeover."

"Nonsense, I told Bunny to jolly you into it. Did he or did he not jolly you?

"He jollied and it was cute but I still need to know Jane, what the fuck?"

"Well I needed a professional to pull off the look I was going for. I showed Bunny the stuff you wore for the art heist and the pink dress from the Blue Bird and he said—"

"Pfft. Bunny said pfft."

"Though I have good taste, I knew Bunny and his gang would be just the people to help you reinvent yourself."

"Reinvent myself?"

"Yes, Teresa. Your life is about to change."

I mull this over. I mean, every married couple is starting a new life together but I think Patrick may mean something more.

"I have something to ask you, Teresa," he whispers.

"At this point, I'm guessing "Will you marry me?" is out of the question?"

He chuckles. The question is, "Will you be Mrs. Jane?" He plants a kiss deep in my right palm. I almost faint.

"I…I thought I was Mrs. Jane. Remember that official looking piece of paper we got after that skit we acted in this morning at City Hall?"

"I mean start a new life, Teresa. From today on, be mine."

"Be yours? So nineteenth century. What would that entail, Jane?"

"I'm not at liberty to tell you everything right now. I can only say that it will be exciting. It'll be glamorous. Mrs. Jane will be rich, respected and even feared. Many people will hope to use her to get in Mr. Jane's good graces.

"It'll be in New York?"

"Yes. And in other world centers. Paris, London, Rome, Beijing, Tokyo."

But what about Abbott?

Jane smiles, "He'll understand."

He leans across the table and gives me one of his lower lip kisses. I'm reduced to mush.

"I'm asking you to re-invent yourself Teresa. To be the wife I need for the kind of life I intend to embark on. Can you do that for me Teresa?"

"It just feels like I don't have enough information to—"

"And you won't. I am your husband and I'm asking you to do this. I'm asking you to trust me to take care of you. To do everything I can to make you happy. To show you a life you've never thought possible."

"It all comes down to this, Teresa. Can you put your doubts aside, can you take my hand and simply be whatever I deem Mrs. Patrick Jane needs to be?" Yes or no?

What would you say?


	7. Chapter 7

"Can you put your doubts aside? Can you take my hand and simply be what I ask you to be?"

That's where we are in this strange conversation. The one in which the man I just married asks if I'll be Mrs. Patrick Jane and embark on a new life with him. A life that he can't tell me about.

But I can rest assured that I'll be loved and lavished with riches and "Abbott will understand."

Mulling this one over while drowning in champagne and Jane's sea green eyes, I have an out-of-body experience here at La Grenouille.

I look down from somewhere near the chandeliers at a chic and decidedly gamine woman sitting in the power banquette, her fingertips being nibbled by the most beautiful man I've ever seen.

Tough little cop Teresa. Teresa, child mother to three lunk headed boys. Teresa, still missing her sainted mommy. Teresa, never allowing herself to admit mom was maybe not that bright nor much of a lady. The perfect mate for drunk dad who drank plenty even before she died.

Teresa, who only fell in love once and is afraid of falling even farther.

I can't detect a shred of blue collar, deep dish pizza Chicago under that midnight Chanel dress or those midnight Pierre Hardy shoes. Or under the midnight lace Carine Gilson bra and boy shorts I'm wearing underneath it all.

This Teresa is wearing Mure et Musc, the perfume Patrick chose for her and is wearing her hair – and I mean ALL her hair - the way Patrick likes it. All the little niceties adhered to according to Bunny's Patrick Jane owner's manual.

Yesterday's Teresa is nowhere to be found. She is as carefully and opaquely packaged as the glamorous Mr. Jane who grew up in an Airstream and never went to school.

Jane has asked me to re-invent myself. To be what he needs in our new life.

What does that new life entail? He says he can't fill in all the details.

It's just important that I whole-heartedly embrace this life purely because it includes him.

This is the ultimate trust fall.

He caught me when I fell in the parking lot in front of the fruit stand. He caught me when I almost followed him to his house and a ticking bomb. He caught me (albeit on the bounce) when he brought me to the FBI.

I look at that fascinating face. What is he asking me to leave behind? Nothing that I really care about.

He's my world.

"OK, I'll be Mrs. Patrick Jane. I'll do anything you want but no butt stuff."

He nuzzles my palm.

"OK. Butt stuff."

We kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

Jane whisks me out of La Grenouille and pretty much ravishes me against the idling midnight Mercedes.

For maybe twenty seconds, his lips and hands seem to be everywhere.

Yves, Jane's driver, discreetly taps away at his iPad.

I can't believe we're married. That I've left my old life behind me. That I'm looking forward to the rest of it in his arms.

"Your trust means everything to me, darling," he says.

He gives me one of his lip-biting kisses. My new husband is on the rambunctious side. I can't wait till we're alone.

He whispers, "I have a feeling you're going to be an excellent wife."

"I intend to be your best wife ever, Patrick."

Gah. What made me say that? I look in his eyes and wonder if he's thinking of Angela.

But I see nothing. Not a flicker.

Jane pulls the car door open and helps me inside.

"I'll see you very shortly, darling," he says as he closes it.


	9. Chapter 9

1

Yves makes a left on 52nd and Park and the big Mercedes motors uptown.

The city is beautiful at night. The car is redolent of good leather and Patrick Jane.

What is that scent? Soap? DNA?

Maybe now that we're married, he'll share his beauty secrets. Or anything, anything at all.

The lights on Park aren't with us but I'm not in a hurry.

My newly minted husband ditched me again.

I don't think it was something I said, though god knows, what I said was one for the books.

"I intend to be your best wife ever." Doh.

Why would I allude to Angela on our wedding night?

In my defense, I've been marinating in champagne all evening and spent hours in an apartment he's apparently owned since the first Mrs. Jane received magazine subscriptions there.

I'd still like to sew my stupid mouth up with a rope.

2

The TV's on in the back seat of the car with the sound off.

CNN recaps the posturing that went on earlier at the United Nations Security Council meeting.

Wait. What?

They cut to someone whispering into the US ambassador's ear.

Jane. That's where he was this afternoon.

Two words appear superimposed next to his chiseled profile.

"Mystery man."

Indeed.

CNN cuts to commercial as I grope for the remote to turn up the sound.

Whatever Jane is up to, he's up to it on an international scale.

3

The ride's over.

Yves opens the car door and Alberto shepherds me through the lobby and into Jeremy's waiting elevator car.

I guess I'm home.

What the hell have I done?

After Jane sent me off in the Mercedes, my decision to marry him with no discussion, cut bangs in my hair and then abandon Austin and the FBI seems crazy.

I need him back so it can all seem sane again.

Jeremy intuits my wish for silence as we ascend to the penthouse level.

How often did he ferry Angela and Patrick up to their gleaming penthouse after a night out?

These are not productive thoughts.

I've had too much champagne and I'm high on the scent of Jane and Mure et Musc.

3

The elevator doors open.

I take a step forward and the doors close behind me.

The big room is dark. The only light comes from traffic flickering down Fifth Avenue.

I take a step forward.

My heels click on the smooth oak floor. My eyes adjust.

The long spindly couch with the shapely gilt legs is gone. Poof.

In its place is another couch. A couch I'd know anywhere.

As I make my way into the cavernous room, the déjà vu is intense.

A Jane plan. This is why I keep him around.

The couch is positioned near the bank of windows just where it belongs.

And on it is a work of art. Jane Odalisque, art historians might title the vision I'm gazing at.

Recumbent in suit pants, matching vest, battered brown shoes and a striped blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I move closer.

The light from outside highlights all the good parts. His curls, his eyelids, his thick blond lashes, the curve of his upturned lips, the crisp line of his jaw, the pale hair on his forearms, the side of his neck where it…I could go on and on.

But I'm on a mission. One I've wanted to complete since the first morning I discovered him asleep on a leather couch.

I advance past the point where traditionally I'd stop and yell at him.

Past the point where normally I'd take the opportunity to kick the patch of leather nearest his head.

I blow past those landmarks, climb up on the sofa and continue to climb right up the man.

Starting at his feet and moving like a cat till my face hovers over his.

The sea green eyes blink open.

"What took you so long, Lisbon?"


	10. Chapter 10

1

"What took you so long, Lisbon?" Jane says from his languid pose on the couch.

Something about seeing him horizontal always does funny things to my stomach.

Now that I'm poised on top of him, I can't quite recall what could have possibly delayed me all these years.

He clasps his hands behind his head and lets me undress him. I undo the buttons of the vest and then the shirt. They fall open framing his body.

I lean forward, inhale him and nibble his chest. He tastes as good as he smells.

His lips curve into the smug smile sported by every Archaic Greek statue from Art History 101.

His skin seems lit from within. Like gold. He's a smooth sleek seal of a husband. Not fuzzy at all. Nothing to mar the gilded contours.

I've always thought this but now it's confirmed. Patrick Jane makes the rest of us seem like we're made with industrial grade materials.

I'm suddenly glad that Bunny buffed me to a fine patina. Combed and groomed and waxed and exfoliated me within an inch of my life. Three hours of preparation to be able to hold my head up next to naked Jane whom I'm positive rolls out of bed looking like something Lord Elgin shoplifted from Athens.

I'm transfixed.

By the feel of his skin. By the sight of his dainty nipples, his perfect navel and the faint golden line of hair my eyes follow to his belt buckle.

This is putting me into a trance better than the time he refused to hypnotize me and counted backwards from 100.

2

I'm the one on my back now. And I thought I was driving the bus.

He's exceedingly strong and his hands are so talented.

I don't think I could gain back the advantage even with my vaunted cop skills. Could use my innate lady skills. But I wouldn't want to kick him there. Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

He's got me down to my boy shorts before I can unbuckle his belt.

I've waited all my life for the rapt, glazed, slightly stupid expression his face takes on as he looks me over.

He's all boy after all, is my Patrick.

Then the sea green eyes focus. I see love and passion and a scrap of leftover anger. Still smarting from the discovery that I said "yes" to Pike.

"It's me and you, Patrick. From now on."

"That's all I ask, darling."

Then he makes me his and I make him mine.

Though I suspect, wild thing that he is, I am more his than he will ever be mine.

Don't know how that will be demonstrated tomorrow but I know that it will.

Tonight, I'm happy. Patrick Jane is asleep in my arms.


	11. Chapter 11

1

Not the next morning.

For Jane has all sorts of at-home activities planned none of which require anything but the couch or the new Haastens mattress with Pratesi bedding monogrammed T.J. in navy that were spirited in through the servant's entrance.

But the morning after that.

We leave the apartment.

Actually, Mr. Jane, as everyone reverentially calls him, is gone when I open my eyes.

It's Bunny who wakes me by sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"Wake up, lucky lucky girl."

I look in his pretty hazel eyes. It hits me that he's tempted to ask how it was being with Jane. Bunny loves Jane. Maybe has for years. We have a lot in common.

But Bunny doesn't ask. "Time to make you Mrs. Jane," he says briskly.

In a trice, Teeny, the chubby bee, has me immersed in the deep heavily veined marble tub. It looks a lot like Napoleon's sarcophagus and may well be a fitting monument to the memory of Teresa Lisbon.

She hands me a bar of Acacia soap by Rance'. Aha. This is the faint scent I often detect mixed in with all the Jane-ness. I emerge smelling like a Jane.

Teeny spritzes me with Mure et Musc, Jane's chosen perfume for me. Wonder what the history is on his choice? I don't know if I want to know.

Then I get a low bun and diamond studs as big as my front teeth.

Mrs. Jane, it seems, wears Chanel. This morning, a winter white sleeveless dress with gold buttons up the side with matching three-quarter length coachmen's coat also with gold buttons and a pair of slim flats, camel leather with black cap toes. Old school. And finally, the oversize #255 bag, black leather, quilted, chain-handled and eternally wait-listed is hung on my shoulder by Bunny himself as the elevator doors open.

Seems that for Mrs. Jane (and maybe, Kate Middleton), there is no wait-list. For anything.

Jane's there in the lobby. His eyes light up taking in every detail. He kisses my hand and leads me to the front door just as Alberto opens it. At the last second, he repositions my necklace so the cross hangs hidden down the inside back of my jacket.

"No public affiliations, Teresa. Not wise."

There's a throng of press and photographers outside all hoping to get a word from the "Mystery Man" seen kibbutzing at the UN the day before yesterday.

Yves expertly hip checks some who get too close, inserts us into the car and we speed off down Fifth Avenue.


	12. Chapter 12

1

We fall into a routine.

Everyday, Mrs. Jane, beautifully turned out, looks on from the gallery at the UN. She gazes impassively – "No public affiliations, Teresa" - at her husband, Mr. Jane, as he inaudibly counsels the US ambassador on various and sundry topics.

Every night, Mr. and Mrs. Jane, beautifully turned out, attend significant social functions, leave early, have dinner alone somewhere, go home and have torrid sex.

Everything but the torrid sex is widely reported in the media.

2

Mrs. Jane does not show skin. Especially not cleavage. "Cleavage, pfft," says Bunny.

Mrs. Jane does not wear black, red, open toes - except at resorts, prints, blouson-anything, earrings that dangle, smoky eyes, or curly hair.

It's gotten so that when I see someone sporting any of these, I say to myself, "Pfft."

3

Things I have realized.

Patrick Jane is a very ambitious man. Turns out he likes the world stage much better than the carny, CBI or FBI stage. He told me he's wanted to get involved in foreign affairs for years. Thought he could use his skills on a grander scale. Jane advising on diplomacy. That's rich.

He likes buying things. For me. For the apartment. Gets pissed if I look at price tags. "Don't be such a life-sapping, anal-retentive pain-in-the-ass, Teresa," he croons sweetly in my ear one day when I balk at $33,000 for a Roman bust. He says it's reasonable for a Roman bust. I don't have much prior experience shopping for antiquities so we bring it home and place it on the newly installed Napoleon III marble mantle. NAP-o-lee-OWN TWAH. I like saying it.

I couldn't have predicted this but I'm finding it restful to defer to him. He's brilliant and confident and everyone else listens to him. Life is pleasant. The line between my eyebrows has faded to nothing.

One other thing I've realized. Though every part of me has touched every part of him, he remains a mystery to me.

4

"You've known him a long time?" I ask Bunny during an interminable ball gown fitting.

"Fourteen years." His eyes are busy scrutinizing the hem of the voluminous skirt.

"So you knew Angela?" I'm embarrassed to use Bunny as a source of information but I'm not going to get any from Jane.

"Never met her. He bought the apartment, intending to make a big life change, but she refused to move here. Wanted to stay in California."

"Did he already have relationships with people at the U.N.?"

"He said he needed time to work on them. They weren't listening to a sideshow psychic no matter how good a track record he had. No credibility."

Bunny pulls a pair of sapphire earrings the size of gumballs from his pocket and attaches them to my earlobes.

"So they never lived here?" I ask.

Bunny squints at me and seems satisfied with my outfit. "Patrick went back to California, he told me, to gain credibility."


	13. Chapter 13

1

Jane is no longer Mystery Man to the citizens of the planet. He is Patrick Jane, World's Foremost Authority.

He's avoided a war or two. Found common ground for opposing factions. Figured out where quite a few hostages were being held.

People who hate each other trust him.

He has credibility.

I have him.

And of course, he is right. My silent, devoted demeanor and chaste ensembles only serve to enhance his mystique.

At this point, I view gazing at him adoringly as important work.

The press presses me for interviews. Vogue wants me for the December cover, the Peace on Earth issue.

I am certain that if I opened my mouth, it would only diminish me.

2

"Patrick," I say, lying next to him in the dark, the Anichini sheets (I find I prefer them to Pratesi) smooth against my skin.

"Yes, darling."

"How much do they pay you?"

"Nothing, darling."

"Then how—"

"Gambling, darling. I couldn't take money for what I do. That would ruin my credibility."

3

We're in the car on the way to the U.N.

It's been about a month but I now view my highest calling to be to keep my mouth shut and make Jane look good. Also, I'm proud that he gambles.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

The car slows and stops in front of a building on Park and 68th.

Yves opens my door.

I look at Patrick.

"You have to see Dr. Margulies, darling."

"But I'm feeling—"

He kisses me.

Yves hands me out of the car.

4

I was on the pill but that didn't stop Patrick Jane.


	14. Chapter 14

1

Update: a month into my new life.

I'm pregnant. Also sexually obsessed with my husband.

Not just for the physical gratification.

But because it's the only time I have him completely in my power.

I live for the way he looks when he starts to lose his mind.

The hooded glittering eyes. The beautiful head thrown back.

I exhaust him. I make a habit of touching him when he's asleep. Demanding his attentions.

He's amused. Describes himself as my sex slave. But it's the other way around.

2

I buy a coffee table. The Yves Klein coffee table in Klein Blue.

$25,000. I don't blink when I take out my credit card.

I move the Roman bust Jane bought from the mantel to the center of the Yves Klein table.

Jane snorts out a laugh when he arrives home and sees it. I give him my defiant look but that makes him laugh even more.

3

I come home with a little Olmec statue I see in a gallery on Madison. A beautiful fierce basalt were-jaguar circa 1500 B.C.E.

I unwrap it and set it on the Yves Klein table next to the Roman bust.

3

The elevator doors open and a beaming Bunny scampers in loaded with shopping bags.

Close on his heels is Jane smiling, his hands in his pockets.

He let Bunny take him clothes shopping.

You would think this would be a dreary busman's holiday for Bunny, but spending time dressing up the dolly that is Jane is his idea of heaven.

Maybe Jane let Bunny measure his inseam or something.

4

Today is the thirteenth anniversary of the deaths of Angela and Charlotte.

Jane doesn't say anything. He seems fine and I don't feel right about bringing it up.

But Bunny mentions it right away when he comes over with a rack of winter coats.

Says it was soon after Patrick went back to California to gain credibility.

"How soon?" I ask.

"Two days." Bunny replies slipping a camel hair chesterfield off its hanger and onto my shoulders.


	15. Chapter 15

1

It's the middle of November.

December Vogue comes out with me on the cover in an ice blue satin dress that Karl Lagerfeld fitted on me himself.

Patrick Demarchellier shot it.

Bunny styled it.

The photo was taken back in September so I'm not showing yet.

I certainly look pregnant now. February can't come quick enough.

2

I tell Bunny that Patrick may be nudging us toward world peace but having his wife on the cover of Vogue has really given him the ultimate credibility.

Bunny doesn't laugh. Usually he's a great audience.

2

We spend Christmas in St. Moritz.

Jane skis and plays backgammon for fun and profit.

Then New Year's in Paris.

He takes me to the flea market at St. Ouen. I buy sconces and a Louis XVI day bed.

On the way home, a stop off in London so Patrick can mind fuck some terrorist the stymied British Secret Service have had no luck cracking. All free of charge of course, a mercy fuck mind fuck.

On the plane to New York, everyone in first class comes by to shake Jane's hand and thank him for the good work he's doing.

At this rate, the bastard's going to get The Nobel Peace Prize. My bastard.

3

When we get back, something's off with Bunny.

"What's bothering you?" I ask him as he zips me into a wool dress cut so artfully that it makes me look four months pregnant instead of seven months pregnant.

He doesn't want to tell me but I give him my best Cho eye and he crumbles.

"I've been thinking...promise me, Teresa, that you'll listen to Patrick. OK?"

"Listen to him? Like obey him, you mean?"

"It's just…he has everything just the way he's always wanted it now and…you're happy, right?"

"I'm very happy but what are you getting at, Bunny?"

"That's all I wanted to hear," he says as he jumps on the elevator. He blows me a kiss and the elevator doors close.


	16. Chapter 16

"Oh god, Teresa," Patrick gasps as I finally release him from the ecstatic limbo I've held him in for the past half hour.

Seven months pregnant and I can't keep my hands off him.

Besides, tonight, I have an ulterior motive.

He falls back panting on the bed.

I don't give him a beat to recover.

"Talk to me about credibility, Patrick."

His sea green eyes open.

I keep my tone casual. "Credibility. Bunny said when Angela wouldn't move here with you, you went back to California to get it."

Suddenly, I'm the one on my back.

I press on. "Bunny said it was only two days later that Red John—"

Patrick's hands tangle deep in my hair. His body pins mine to the bed.

His breath is hot in my ear.

"Ask me anything you want, Teresa."

I look at his face. Beguiling. Unreadable.

What would asking the questions I have do to us?

His eyes are dark. "Remember what I told you when you agreed to be Mrs. Jane, Teresa?"

I scour my brain.

"Uhh…your trust is everything to me, darling?" Hearing myself say it, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he said that night.

His voice is husky and yet, like velvet. "Exactly, darling. Just so."


	17. Chapter 17

1

"Your trust is everything to me, Teresa. So anything that's on your mind, anything that Bunny talked about, just ask me."

He tucks one of the vintage Lesage embroidered pillows I bought under his curly head and gazes at me and waits.

Why did I start this conversation?

Do I actually think Patrick Jane manipulated Red John to rid him of Angela, the millstone weighing down his career prospects? And, as collateral damage, his innocent daughter?

I've never been happier. No one has ever taken care of me like this. He's introduced me to a life I didn't even know existed. I'm going to have his child in a few weeks.

How could I let Bunny put such doubt in my head?

I need to diffuse this situation before it passes the point of no return.

"Bunny is quite a character, isn't he?" I roll my eyes.

Jane's eyes are on fire. Like if the ocean were on fire.

There's a pause.

"He's an original, alright. And he loves to talk." Jane matches my light tone.

So we've agreed to move on.

2

5 a.m.

I wake to find Patrick's side of the bed empty.

I do a quick survey of the interior then scope out the outdoor spaces.

There are three wide terraces to check.

I locate Jane in the last place I look.

Out on the room-sized terrace off the living room, staring at the city just as dawn comes.

His shoulders are heaving. He's weeping.

Also, he's not leaning on the railing.

He's sitting on it.

Nothing between him and the pavement but taxi fumes.

I freeze.

I want to scream his name but I'm afraid I'll startle him.

Then he slowly swings his legs back over the railing.

I slip away to bed.

3

The phone rings at 9 a.m.

Jane takes the call. It's those wonderful folks from the Nobel Peace Prize.

The next few hours are amazing.

In the midst of fielding congratulations from everyone he's ever met, receiving a WTF? text from Cho and giving interviews to The Times, CNN, Al Jazeera et al, Jane squeezes in one phone call.

To Bunny.

4

Bunny enters arms out and shrieking followed by Teeny and Abraham hauling racks of major gowns.

He hugs me, hugs Jane, then covers Jane's face with kisses.

"Come on, Patrick. Let's go prove that a man in tails can be sexy."

Bunny drags him onto the elevator.

Off they go to buy Jane a penguin suit for the ceremony.

5

All afternoon, Teeny and Abraham hold up gowns in front of me.

I'm too big and unwieldy to attempt trying them on.

I will have given birth a few months earlier but Bunny is betting I'll be down to a size two in time for the ceremony in Oslo.

If not, we designate a size four with an empire cut as back-up.

I'm on edge.

I text Patrick asking where he wants to have dinner.

No answer.

I send him a photo of me with an ice blue duchesse satin strapless column dress clutched against my belly.

Nothing.

Teeny and Abraham wrap it up and depart.

I kill time arranging my collection of Olmec figurines in size order.

Jane has officially taken too long.


	18. Chapter 18

I've rearranged my Olmec statue collection twice.

I walk the apartment trailing my hand along the walls. I straighten my Serge Roche plaster mirror and then my row of Luc Tuymans paintings. I like his portraits but the rabbit I just acquired from David Zwirner is my favorite.

Four hours for Jane and Bunny to buy a cutaway coat for the Nobel ball is too long.

They've picked out entire wardrobes on a tea break.

I wish I could have a drink.

I wish Jane would come home.

I lie down on the Louis XVI daybed Jane bought me in Paris. The vintage Kuba cloth upholstery I had done gives it just what it needed.

The elevator doors open.

Jane. He heads straight for the bedroom.

I haul myself up and follow him.

He comes out of the bathroom drying his hands.

He flops on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

"Where's Bunny?" I blurt.

"I lost him in Barney's looking for patent leather shoes."


	19. Chapter 19

1

Patrick lies there on the bed.

He lost Bunny at Barney's?

I look into those endless eyes for a full ten seconds.

Ten seconds is a long time when you know the person looking back can penetrate your mind.

I blink first.

I can't stay in here.

I head back to the living room to…I don't know what.

The elevator doors open.

"Last pair of size ten plain patent brogues in town! Suck on that, other medium-build Nobel winners!" Bunny crows as he slides into home across the marble foyer floor.

The two shoes laced together hang around his neck like a horse that won the Derby.

"Bunny!"

I can't stop hugging him.

"Don't get lipstick on the patent leather, Teresa!"

Beautiful, beautiful Bunny wriggles out of my arms like an unruly boy.

2

I don't come to bed until hours later.

Is Jane asleep? I don't know what to say.

I slip under the covers.

He immediately wraps his arms around me.

"Shhh, Teresa. It'll be ok."

I'm so relieved.

It will.

3

The next few weeks fly.

I'm happy.

I have the best husband. The best life.

Two weeks ahead of schedule, I feel the first twinges of pain.

Jane holds me in the back of the midnight Mercedes as Yves drives us over to Mount Sinai.

I gasp when the pain hits again.

"It'll all be over in an hour or so, darling."

I give him the hairy eyeball.

He explains. "Jane babies are always considerate of their mothers."

4

Fifty-three minutes later, he places the considerate Violet Jane in my arms.

She's like…she is her father in female, infant form.

Sea green eyes. A riot of blonde curls. Golden skin.

She stretches.

Long fingers.

I can't tease out a Lisbon strand anywhere in that double helix.

5

Bunny was at a party and gave an interview to New York Magazine.

People now know that he's known Patrick Jane, revered Nobel laureate, for a long time. That Mr. Jane likes the scent of Mure et Musc and always brings home white anemones when he sees them and appreciates Mrs. Jane's collection of Olmec figurines. Especially the fierce little were-jaguars she likes to arrange in size order.

I put down the article.

I can hear Jane's voice months ago, "He's an original, alright. And he loves to talk."

6

Mrs. Jane wears midnight blue to the service for Bunny.

It was a rogue blood clot, the coroner said.

He never felt a thing.

I wanted to honor him by not wearing black.

Pfft. Wouldn't want to look witchy.

I sit in the pew, maintain a dignified posture and keep my eyes straight ahead.

Teeny takes her turn at the podium sobbing about the daunting task of filling Bunny's Belgian loafers.

For the millionth time today, I can feel Jane's penetrating gaze.

Doesn't he know his trust is everything to me?


End file.
